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Restoration
Well... Maybe not soon. I decided to take a
breather from the indoor work and start on the outside. Visions of a secret
garden, a gazebo, and a circular porch danced in my head. A white picket fence
around our entire acre: "Paradise Acre," that's what I'll call it.
Just think, I would get to paint that fence every year…on second thought,
maybe every other year.
 The window boxes will need planting. I'll
continue the stenciling I started last spring. I'm going to rake, dig, chop down
sumac trees. I'm going to lose five pounds. I can hardly wait. My loyal
housekeeper, Mrs. Schaub, who helps clean, paint, sew drapes, and has a green
thumb, is going to introduce me to the joys of our very own cutting garden.
There is no end to the wonders that can and will take place here.
I realize only the house and I know what it
really took to reach this plateau. The house and I share an intimacy, a bond so
close even Michael doesn't know all our secrets.
Yet the house knows every step we take, hears our
every utterance, feels our love.
As I look to the future and the work still ahead
( I want to restore shutters to the windows and replace the aluminum sash with
wood), I can't help but reminisce about our beginnings…like the first time I
was up in the attic, and the sun was
 streaming through the tiny window. I opened
it to discover a storybook view of the family cemetery below, surrounded by
beautiful old trees. How peaceful it all was, to sit there and read through
Riker memorabilia. Or the first time I cleaned the basement, untouched for
years. I spotted a trunk fallen behind some debris. I opened it to behold a
wedding gown, perfectly preserved. And then just last summer, when we opened our
double-Dutch door to the local historical society for our first house tour. A
lady came over to shake my hand and thank me "on behalf of Queens,"
for preserving this little bit of history.
 I wouldn't have missed a minute of it. But guess
what? I'm not going to miss a minute of it, a hundred years from now, either:
I'll be resting right out back in the family burial ground. I'm family now, and
the house wouldn't want it any other way.
That's' my Cinderella story. I found my prince.
But instead of a glass slipper, he came bearing this jewel of a house. It suited
me perfectly, but it needed a lot of polishing. It took the likes of me to do
it.
I needed someone to show me paradise exists, and
it took the likes of Michael to lead the way. Michael needed me to take his hand
and follow him home. And we all lived happily ever after.
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